Blue
by reciprocityfic
Summary: au - another reboot of the reboot. if there's one thing olivia dunham is sure of, it's that something isn't quite right.
1. Chapter 1

She can't help but feel that there's something wrong.

Something wrong that goes beyond the fact that the woman working alongside her _is_ her, an alternate version of herself with confidence and red hair and a cheeky smile. Beyond the fact that the Walter barking out orders to them wears a dark suit, his eyes and his voice cold and calculating.

She's anxious, on edge, can't focus. Her mind wanders constantly, and every time the heavy metal door to the room swings open with a deep moan, her eyes dart to the threshold. Longing, hoping desperately.

She wishes she knew what she wanted to come through the entrance.

No one really notices. When they do comment, she tells them that she's tired or stressed, and they give her a knowing smile and go on their way. Walter, _her_ Walter, smiles, wearing a white lab coat, half-eaten Red Vine in hand, and prescribes her some LSD. He knows what blend she enjoys.

Only her alternate knows her well enough not to be fooled.

"Who are you waiting for, Dunham?" she asks her one day in a detached tone, trying to sound disinterested. Her eyes immediately look towards the door.

 _Someone. Anyone. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know._

"No one."

* * *

The most frustrating thing is that she really _can't_ remember.

She tries. Every day she tries to remember as hard as she can. At night she lies in bed, sleep evading her. She stares at the ceiling and she just thinks, thinks, thinks, until her head hurts and tears form in the corner of her eyes.

But it's gone. Whatever it is has become black and empty in her mind, just like Walter and Cortexiphan and Jacksonville.

And she can't remember, can't remember, can't remember.

* * *

She supposes that it's been a long time since she began to feel lonely.

She hadn't thought anything of it at the time, with John getting sick and dying. Losing your lover, finding out that he wasn't who he said he was, realizing that you couldn't trust a word that had come out of his mouth, couldn't believe in any of the feelings he claimed to have for you, well, that was bound to leave you with some sense of solitude, wasn't it?

Nothing had seemed so _bad_ then, besides the obvious. Of course, there was the trip to Iraq, that she still can't explain to this day. She just knew, knew with an unjustifiable certainty, that the cure to John's illness was in Iraq. Something, _someone_ there was going to help them.

That ended with her sitting in the Baghdad International Airport, empty handed and possessing more questions now than she had begun with, hundreds of dollars down the drain and a furious boss waiting for her at home.

And then there was Dr. Walter Bishop.

Dr. Walter Bishop, a brilliant reclusive scientist, who had scoffed at her when she first knocked on his door and asked for his help, turning her away with an adamant "No". But Olivia Dunham is quite persistent when she wants to be, and she will forever be indebted to Dr. Bishop's lovely wife, Elizabeth, for finally convincing her husband, once and for all, to help her.

Dr. Walter Bishop – genius, scattered, frustrating, almost childlike, almost unbearable, but so, so, _so_ genius. Indispensable, unfortunately, and as days with the scientist turned into weeks turned into months, filled with words she didn't understand and the most gruesome, disturbing crime scenes she'd ever witnessed and trying futilely to get Walter to _focus_ , she came home every night, exhausted, and wondered why she took this job in the first place.

But, as it turned out, if you spent some time with Dr. Walter Bishop, he wasn't as bad as he first seemed.

You had to learn to handle Walter, and slowly but surely, she and Junior Agent Astrid Farnsworth did so. They learned that doing certain things would make him stay on task for more than a few minutes, found ways to get him to translate scientific jargon into statements they could comprehend.

And she discovered that, shockingly, Dr. Walter Bishop could become bearable when he let his walls down and you got to know him. _Enjoyable_ even. She found that as he stood in the lab and smiled at her, asking for some licorice, as they discovered hybrids and mutants and Observers and disease, he could be somewhat endearing.

He became almost like a father to her, in some strange, twisted way. A father that she never had. A father that she had to monitor and babysit like a younger brother, yes, but also a father that cared for her and encouraged her and tried to make her smile on those days that were especially hard.

She'd never had something like that before.

* * *

She still felt lonely, though.

Of course, no matter how much she liked the man, it wasn't like people like Walter Bishop satisfied your craving for company from other, completely normal human beings. And Astrid was a sweetheart, but

she was as much caught up in this mess as Olivia was, holed up in that basement lab with Walter all day.

She had no one on the outside, and she told herself that is all she needed. Then she'd feel better.

She had Charlie, at least. Agent Charlie Francis, her colleague, her best friend, who could always crack a smile and tell a joke when things got to be too much. He could always hold her hand and pull her back from that ledge when she thought she was about to go over.

That is, until she didn't anymore.

He's taken over by a _shapeshifter_ , a creature than can change forms and become anyone they want to. He, _it_ , tried to kill her, in a deserted alleyway on a cloudy, wet day, and she shot it. She killed it.

She killed Charlie Francis. She killed her best friend.

She sat on the cold, dirty, damp pavement and stared in horror as blood and something metallic (mercury, she'd later discover) flowed from the bullet hole in his forehead.

Just when she thought things couldn't get any worse.

She remembered, in that moment, the songs that her dad used to play on his old record player in their house in Jacksonville, before everything. She remembered being little two and a half year-old Olivia, standing on Daddy's feet as he glided them across the living room, singing _so_ loud and off-key, and how she laughed.

She remembered, there was one song that her mother started to play a lot, after Daddy didn't come home.

 _You're gonna cry, cry, cry and you'll cry alone  
When everyone's forgotten and you're left on your own  
You're gonna cry, cry, cry_


	2. Chapter 2

After Charlie was gone, they gave her a partner.

He's Special Agent Lincoln Lee. He dealt with a few strange cases before, but nothing like this. To say he was excited to work with them would be an understatement.

He's smart, funny, witty, eager, and good at his job. He quickly filled the space where Charlie's jokes and laugh used to be. Olivia thinks they would have gotten on very well, the two of them.

She grew to very much like Lincoln Lee. His approach to the job was completely different to her sullen, serious one, but she found it refreshing, not annoying like she feared she would. He made her smile on days when smiles had previously been long forgotten things. And he made her feel more normal than she had felt in a very long time.

With Lincoln Lee, she didn't feel lonely anymore.

No, she didn't feel lonely.

But she did feel like something wasn't right.

* * *

"Agent Dunham, Agent Lee, I know where the monster that killed Agent Francis came from."

She was excited to hear these words come from Walter's mouth. She'd been waiting to hear them for weeks. She wouldn't deny that she was eager to go and enact revenge on the people that took Charlie from her.

His next words, though, she wasn't exactly thrilled to hear.

Lincoln looked at him like he was crazy.

"You think that these things are shape-shifting soldiers from a different _universe_?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, _yes_ ," Walter stammered. "Belly and I hypothesized that there are an infinite number of alternate realities, each unique, each containing slightly different versions of ourselves that have changed based on the choices we make. Thus, the concept of déjà vu. We believe that we've experienced something before in our lives, because in fact, in another universe, we have."

"An _infinite_ number of universes?" Lincoln asked again. "Did you just say that there is an _infinite_ number of universes out there?"

"That was just a hypothesis between Belly and me," Walter corrected. "We've only confirmed the existence of one."

"Wait, let me get this straight. You _confirmed_ the existence of _another universe_?"

Walter nodded. "Yes."

 _"How?"_

"I've been there, Agent Lee," Walter said straightforwardly.

Lincoln laughed suddenly, in disbelief. "You've been to another universe. Fantastic." He ran a hand over his face. "Jesus Christ."

When Walter walked away, promising to "soon explain everything in simpler terms that will make perfect, logical sense to all", Lincoln looked at her with skeptical eyes.

"Liv, I've seen some crazy things since I began working here, and I think that I've been pretty open-minded and accepting of all this weird... _whatever_ you call science. But another universe?" He shook his head.

She nodded. She didn't know what to say.

"What you think?"

She shrugs. "I think that we should let Walter explain everything first. How he discovered this place, how he got there. Why he wanted to go there in the first place. I think we should hold off our judgment until then, though. If there's one thing I've learned about Walter after all this time, it's that he usually pulls through when you least expect him to."

She didn't tell him that to her, for some reason, Walter's crazy theory (And it _was_ crazy. It was insane. She shouldn't have believed him.) didn't sound that implausible.

* * *

Dr. Walter Bishop and his lovely wife, Elizabeth, had a daughter. A beautiful little girl.

Her name was Lucy Elaine Bishop. She was born on April 8th, 1976. She weighed seven pounds and five ounces, and had her father's nose and her mother's eyes.

Her favorite color was pink. She had a teddy bear name Mr. Fluff that she took with her everywhere. She had the most beautiful smile Walter had ever seen, that revealed two adorable dimples. She was a happy child, so happy. She _radiated_ joy wherever she went, and could light up a room with her mere presence.

At age nine months, she took her first steps. At age two, she declared she wanted to be a ballerina. By her third birthday, though, she had changed her mind. She wanted to be a scientist, just like her Daddy. By age four, she taught herself to read. _"She was gifted," Walter declared with a nostalgic smile that broke Olivia's heart. "So very gifted."_ She lost her first tooth two weeks after her fifth birthday. In August of that same year, she began kindergarten, running to catch the yellow school bus every day with a bright pink backpack slung over her shoulders that was almost as big as she was. She was the smartest kid in her class. Her best friend's name was Emily. When school ended, she couldn't wait to go to first grade.

At age six, she became very sick.

She was always tired, constantly running a fever above 101. She was nauseated all of the time. On the bad days, she was lucky to be able to keep down dry toast and ginger ale. She battled bouts of diarrhea and dizziness. And all of the joy that Lucy exuded went clear out of her.

The doctors said that her kidneys were failing. They didn't know how. They didn't know why. They did so many tests, tried too many treatments for Dr. Bishop to count, but they always came up empty-handed. Lucy didn't get better. Lucy got worse.

Lucy was dying.

It was hell on earth for Walter. Not only was his only child, his pride and joy, his _little baby girl_ dying, but he was a scientist. And he couldn't save his own daughter's life, no matter how he tried. And he _did_ try. For months, he more or less lived in his basement lab at Harvard, working day and night trying to find a cure for the disease that consumed his daughter.

He couldn't.

"Belly and I," Walter told them, "had recently invented something that allowed us to look into the other world. We could see them, unbeknownst to them, like we were peering through a window. We _had_ technology that would enable to cross into their universe, but we never intended on using it. It was far too dangerous."

"Dangerous how?" Olivia asked.

"Our window only temporarily _stretched_ the fabric between the universes. It made it thin enough for us to see through, but then went back to normal, like nothing had happened. The fabric between the universes, it's very elastic. But to be able to travel between worlds, you have to _tear_ the fabric. You have to create a permanent hole between universes, a crack that will never be erased. And just like a piece of glass, that crack would lead to more cracks, until the glass eventually broke."

They never intended on using it, Dr. William Bell and Dr. Walter Bishop.

But as they observed the other world, they saw the advanced technology that they possessed. Technology that this world didn't have. Innovations in everything from science to education to sports to marketing to _medicine_ …

And maybe, even though _this_ Walter couldn't find a cure for his daughter, maybe his alternate could, maybe he _was_ , finding a cure for his.

So he crossed.

"You can't imagine what it's like to lose a child," Walter whispered solemnly.

He found the other Dr. Walter Bishop. He was a scientist working out of Harvard, just like him. But this Dr. Walter Bishop wasn't working trying to cure his daughter.

This Dr. Walter Bishop didn't have a daughter. His wife, Elizabeth, couldn't have children.

But, after Walter's pleading, and after the scientist got over the initial shock of finding out that there was another universe out there, an alternate reality, he agreed to help Walter.

The two worked tirelessly to find a way to make Lucy better. And, after two and a half weeks of experimenting day in and day out, they did. They found a cure.

Except, when Walter traveled back to this universe, he discovered that he was two days too late.

Lucy was gone.

Walter took a deep, shaky breath.

Olivia had never seen the old man so sad before.

"Belly gave me hell," he continued, with a forced smile, "when he discovered I'd gone to the other side. He told me that I'd started a war, a great storm, that would ultimately lead to the destruction of one or both universes. And not too long after that, our partnership ended."

She couldn't, in the days that followed, shake the feeling that she'd _heard_ this story before, multiple times. But the characters were slightly off and the ending different, but just as sad.

 _"…slightly different versions of ourselves…"_

But she didn't. She couldn't have. And she didn't.

It was, however, the strongest feeling of déjà vu she'd ever experienced.


	3. Chapter 3

A few weeks later, Olivia sat in her office at the Harvard lab, looking over case files with Lincoln. Astrid ran into the room.

"Something's wrong with Walter. A few minutes ago, he was in the middle of brushing Gene when he just dropped the brush and sat down. It's like he suddenly _stopped_. He won't move or talk to me. He'll hardly look at me."

She found him sitting in Gene's pen, on a pile of fresh hay that had just been delivered that morning. The brush still laid next to him.

He didn't notice as she crouched down next to him. His eyes were far away.

"Walter," she whispered.

Her voice broke him out of his trance, and he jumped slightly as he turned to look at her. He found her eyes, and smiled softly.

"Agent Dunham."

"What's wrong, Walter?"

He frowned, and stared ahead again, at the gray cement wall.

"While brushing Gene, I decided to make custard for Elizabeth's birthday."

"Okay." She didn't understand.

He laughed sadly, and brought a hand up to cover his mouth.

"Elizabeth hates custard. And it's September. Elizabeth's birthday isn't until June."

And it was just a simple mistake that could have been attributed to anyone with an elderly mind, especially _Walter_ , but it resonated deep inside her.

As she sunk down onto the hay next to him, she understood.

"Olivia," Walter said after a few moments of silence. He looked at her with glossy eyes, and somehow she understood.

"I think I lost something."

And there are so many things he could have been talking about. His partner, his pen, his career, his favorite sweater.

His Lucy.

But she understood.

Reaching over to take his aged hand in hers, she murmured, "I think we both did."

* * *

Walter eventually told her.

He told her about how, before Dr. William Bell and Dr. Walter Bishop's partnership formally ended, they started to get ready for war with the other side. He told her about the daycare center that they purchased in Jacksonville, Florida. He told her about Cortexiphan.

He told her about the children. The children that they prepared to be protectors of this universe during the _"great storm"_. The children they experimented on.

He told her about her connection to the other side.

She was _furious_ with him, expectedly and understandably. She yelled at him, berated the old man for testing untried drugs on _kids_ , on _her_ , for stealing her childhood and her innocence and starting this path of chaos in her life.

She held he and William Bell and Cortexiphan responsible for everything bad she'd ever experienced, and she knew that she shouldn't have, but it felt good to have something to blame, for once, for how screwed her life was.

She left the lab and walked outside into the chilly October air. She found a bench, and sitting down on it, she placed her head in her hands and began to cry.

Sometime later, and she doesn't know when, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She looked up, and Lincoln was standing over her, a concerned expression on his face.

"What's happening to me?" She didn't try to hide her tears or make excuses in front of Lincoln. She didn't feel like she had to hide anything from him.

Lincoln sighed, and sat next to her.

"Olivia…"

"I always knew that I wasn't normal. I know that I don't fit in and I know that I'm never going to have a picture-perfect life with a nice husband and 2.5 kids, and that I'm not going to live in some quiet neighborhood in the suburbs of Boston and go to work every day 9 to 5 and retire when I'm sixty-two. I _know_ that. But is it too much to ask to be somewhat normal in this odd life that I've chosen? I mean, when I signed up for the FBI, I thought that I would deal with kidnappings and shootings and hostage situations and drug busts. And I did, for a while, but then I took _this_ job, because it was the right thing to do. And I got used to it and it was fine. But then, I find out that there is not only a parallel universe out there, but that I am expected to _protect_ our universe from it using some magic powers that I was given as a child when two sick scientists dosed me with experimental drugs."

She took a deep breath, and wiped at her eyes.

"I'm not asking to be normal, Lincoln. But I don't want _this_." Her voice broke, and she sobbed. Lincoln put his arm around her and pulled her close. Her head fell on his shoulder.

"I can't do this, Lincoln. I don't know how and I'm not ready and I don't want to do this."

She lifted her head to look at him, and his hand reached up to brush a piece of hair from her forehead.

"Lincoln," she whispered.

She didn't get to say her next two words, though. _I'm scared._

Because he leaned in and kissed her then.

It was nice. It warmed her up and made her feel that much better.

She didn't love him. But she thought, over time, she could grow to love Lincoln Lee, if she let herself. Life with Lincoln Lee would be very nice. She was able to picture in her mind, and she would be happy and he would make her laugh and she could love him.

It would be nice, she thought, as they got up from the bench and he kissed the top of her head.

But she couldn't help but feel that something wasn't right.

When she went home that night, she whispered, into the darkness of her apartment, to no one in particular.

"I think I lost something."

* * *

She forgave Walter ultimately, because he was _Walter_ and she knew that he regretted what he'd done by the guilt that showed in his eyes when he looked at her. And she believed he was a changed man now.

She also cared very much for the old man, if she was being honest, and found it wasn't very hard to find it inside her to let him off the hook.

Everything seemed to happen very quickly after that.

Before she had a chance to properly breathe, the presence of the other universe made itself known in full force, and somewhere in a whirlwind of discovering her abilities and glimmering and learning that she could _cross to the other universe_ , there was a huge, complicated machine that Massive Dynamic possessed that turned on _by itself_ , and there were earthquakes and lightning storms and soft spots. The "great storm" was definitely here, and there was a time when she thought the world was going to end.

But it didn't.

A sort of bridge was created between universes, and now going to work consisted of sitting in a large, cold lab on Liberty Island, across from an auburn-haired her and an alive Charlie Francis and a sweet but cocky Lincoln Lee. Dr. Walter Bishop from the other universe was there too, he and her Walter's tentative friendship formed long ago erased since it caused such damage to the alternate world. Dr. Walter Bishop is authoritative and put together and callous. She imagines that this is what Walter was like all those years ago, at the daycare center in sunny Florida.

Things with her Lincoln are still nice. Their relationship is careful and tentative, extending only to clasped hands and sweet kisses goodnight. It will turn into something more, she presumes, over time, but she gets the feeling that it will still be only nice, and that's all it ever will be with Lincoln. Nice.

She supposes she is selfish for wanting something more than that, since nice is far beyond anything she thought she'd have after John Scott. But she can't stop thinking that somewhere out there, something more than nice is waiting for her.

She can't help but feel that, somewhere out there, there is something _special_ for her. She just has to find it.

(She also can't stop thinking that she had it, that something special, once. She doesn't know what it was or where it went, but she thinks that she might have had it.)


	4. Chapter 4

Elizabeth Bishop commits suicide on April 8th, 2011. On Lucy Bishop's thirty-fifth birthday.

The eighth of April is always a hard day for both Elizabeth and her husband, a reminder of laughs and toys and story times that were taken from them too soon, birthdays that passed without cards or cakes or presents.

It seemed, though, that this day was especially hard for the dear woman. _Too_ hard.

Walter comes home that evening and finds her sitting in the hall on the cold, hardwood floor, turning his old pistol that he keeps under his bed over and over again in her hands. She looks up when she hears his footsteps. He panics when he sees the gun.

"Elizabeth!"

She sighs, and leans her head back against the wall.

"Don't worry, Walter. I don't have the courage." She picks up an empty pill bottle and tosses it near his feet. He picks it up and reads the label. Tears well in his eyes.

"This is the oxycodone I keep in the medicine cabinet."

"I never understood why you did." She picks up a glass of wine sitting on the floor next to her and takes a sip. "It's dreadful stuff. Absolutely dreadful."

"I've never opened it."

When she doesn't answer, he hurries over to her and crouches down, taking her face in his hands. Her tears fall on his old skin.

"I'm sorry, Walter."

"What have you _done_ , Elizabeth? _What have you done?_ "

"I miss her so much. So much. So I'm going to her. I'm going to see her."

"Elizabeth, _please_ ," he sobs. "Please don't do this. Please don't leave me."

She brings her hand up to rest in his gray hair. "You still have a job to do, Walter. An important one, at that. My purpose on this earth, if I ever had one, is long fulfilled. So I'm going to Lucy."

"Elizabeth," he begs, " _please."_

"Please don't take me to the hospital. Just let me go, Walter. Let me go where I belong."

He looks into her eyes for a long moment, and then pulls her to him, nodding his head hesitantly. He becomes, suddenly, _at peace_ with the whole situation. He knows what it will feel like to lose Elizabeth. It will hurt so much. It will be one of the worst moments of his life.

But, he feels like it is what's supposed to happen.

"Okay," he mumbles. "Okay."

"Thank you, Walter. I love you. Finish your job and then come home. We'll both be waiting for you."

"I love you, Elizabeth."

He sits there, holding her in the dimly-lit hallway, until she leaves him.

She whispers, _"_ Walter, I _see him_."

And then she dies.

* * *

There's a phrase that she can't get out of her head. She doesn't even notice the first time she writes it down, at the top of a page of notes she's scribbled. Lincoln asks her what it means, and as she stares at the four words, she is at a loss. She doesn't know.

 _You belong with me._

She finds herself putting them everywhere after that, in the margins of every paper she looks at, sometimes jotted down in messy scrawl, sometimes written slowly and deliberately, using neat and pretty handwriting, like a girl in middle school writing her crush's name on a piece of notebook paper in science class.

The phrase rings over and over again in her mind, like lyrics to a song that she can't get out of her head.

 _YoubelongwithmeYoubelongwithmeYoubelongwithmeYoubelongwithmeYoubelongwithme_

The words make her heart pound in her chest, and she feels happy and hopeful and undeniably sad and lonely all at the same time.

She remembers Walter's quiet voice.

 _"I think I lost something."_

Lincoln comes to think the phrase is for him, she thinks, but it's _not_. She just doesn't have the heart to tell him that.

 _You belong with me._

And she thinks that she might have had something special, once.

* * *

The rain won't stop falling in New York City.

Her, Lincoln, and Charlie Francis sit outside the Statue of Liberty, at a small table under a red awning, huddled over coffee and tuna sandwiches on toasted wheat bread provided by the other Walter's Elizabeth. It was Lincoln's idea to eat out here, so she followed him, and then Charlie Francis tagged along because he _"couldn't spend another minute stuffed in that damn lab."_

Charlie Francis and Lincoln are talking about something she's not paying attention to, but she hears them laugh every once and a while, and it's not like they're having trouble keeping up a conversation.

She knew that they would've gotten along.

She's quiet as she stares out across New York Harbor at the city. The water is a dismal gray color, matching the thick clouds in the sky. A single patrol boat sails by slowly.

The raindrops create a steady noise as they fall against the canvas of the awning, a ceaseless _pit-pat pit-pat pit-pat_ that drowns out the normal busy sounds of New York.

And there's something about this rain, something different in the smell, a change in the song it makes as it falls against the earth.

She slowly gets up from the table and walks to the edge of the awning. Lincoln and Charlie Francis have stopped their conversation and are watching her, but she doesn't notice.

She reaches her right hand out, and the autumn rain falls in cold plunks against her upturned palm.

A random memory pops into her head. She's looking out of a window at Baghdad as her plane prepares to land. The sun is bright and shining and the sandy earth below is brown and dry. As she steps off the plane, she can feel the intense heat of the desert hang on her skin.

And there's _something_ there waiting for her.

"What are you doing, Olivia?"

She pulls her hand back under the awning, as Lincoln's voice pulls her from her reverie. "Nothing," she says, and she stares at her soaked hand. Some excess water falls from her fingers in drops, creating dark spots on the otherwise dry cement beneath her feet.

"Liv, are you okay?" Lincoln asks as he gets up and walks over to her, placing his hand on her shoulder.

 _"Belly and I hypothesized that there are an infinite number of alternate realities, each unique, each containing slightly different versions of ourselves that have changed based on the choices we make. Thus, the concept of déjà vu. We believe that we've experienced something before in our lives, because in fact, in another universe, we have."_

"I'm fine, Lincoln."

And Walter's words hold a secret meaning that she wishes she understood.


End file.
